lol so says the brave fencer Zarriel

You can't carry a shield in one hand and equip magic in the other hand??

In Oblivion we could block with a 2 handed sword, so it seems like it would only make sense that they would keep that in and add the ability to block with two swords.

Wait you can't have a spell and shield? Where did you hear that?
That's ridiculous.

Oh and in RL there are many reasons to wield a second sword, not just defense.
(*I tend to get caught up in fighting technique, respond at own discretion)

It's been stated that you can't block when wielding magic in one of your hands.

Where? I thought that was only with a one-handed weapon equipped with a spell.

As for parrying with dual-weapons I'm not sure. In a recent interview Todd said you could slash left and right (controlled) by using the direction stick/mouse and also mentioned there would be combos including being able to 'jump backwards', so I think they're trying to make the 'lighter' styles more dodge based. I'll try and find that interview now.

EDIT: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1214087-may-2011-gamerno-norwegian-magazine-interview/

"- How are sword fighting? Can you choose to swing your sword to the left or right?

- Yes, you choose the direction with the control stick. It is also possible to perform different combo attacks, jump back and stuff."

Well if you think about the PC keyboard/mouse combo, you will find that two mouse buttons is not enough to allow you to attack with both mouse buttons and still be able to block. A block using keyboard is simply too slow to be of use.

That said, it will be of the utmost foolishness if you cannot block while duel wielding. This leads to my hypothesis, you will attack with the left button and block/parry with the right button, making the off-hand weapon a shield replacement.

As for how duel wield will differ from one-handed and shield combo besides aesthetics, I would assume somewhere along the attack animation (triggered by a series of left clicks) the secondary weapon gets a hit or two and activates it's effects.

I heard somewhere... cannot remember if it was a reliable source.... But it is believed that the bumpers on controllers or R1 and L1 will be used for blocking. This is due to the fact that magic is no longer cast through extra buttons, as magic will be used through your direct attack button (eg. L2 and R2). Could be average for PC players, but hey there's always PC compatible controllers.

Another theory I have is that blocking/ parrying could be assigned to the joystick buttons eg R3 and L3 in Playstation terms..

For me it's clear:

- If you have a two handed sword, you can block
- if you have two, one handed swords, you can't block

Otherwise why would you ever prefer a two handed sword over a two single handed swords?

It would be too imbalanced

It has been said that timing is involved with blocking,

The way I see it is the less defensive quality something has that you are holding, it will have a shorter time frame for effective blocking..

eg. one handed sword = half a second block time.
two handed sword = one second block time.
shield = two second block time.

Good shout

And incidentally, that picture in your avatar is one of my favourite LOTR paintings. Although they've got the colour of Fingolfin's hair wrong!

i actually saw a two weapon blocking in a gameplay vid. he blocked with one of the weapons. watch the link below. at 2:08 he raises his left sword to block.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tALfR1VKnrE

Ha thanks just seems to make sense to me with the emphasis they are now putting on the timing for blocking (I could still be very wrong however). Yea I love the painting, can look past the minor flaw, though i get what your saying lol. I would love to create a Morgoth inspired character in Skyrim.

First - we don't know yet.

MHO: it would be a shame if the combat was as simplistic as some are suggesting.

Why prefer a two hander? Greater reach. More harm caused.
Why prefer a shield? Much more effective blocking tool.
Why prefer two smaller weapons? Light duelist style of fighting.

Dual wielding is far from a berserk style of fighting - it is quite the opposite. The idea is not to hit somebody with both weapons at the same time but rather to have the option to strike from either side, maybe bind the others weapon while striking with your secondary. If you look at the above you will see that each style has advantages, and none of them preclude doing something that stops yourself from getting hit.

Yeah, that would be awesome

Thanks for the link! yea it does seem as if the sword is held in a defensive position, I won't fully believe anything though until I see an actual block/ parry occur with the one handed weapons.

Yeah I hope we can get some dark evil looking armour, then just play a beefed up nord wielding an ebony sword. Maybe add some magic to portray his part-godlyness.

It would also add an aspect of believing I was powerful enough to fight a dragon for me :toughninja:

I agree, do you have any ideas/ thoughts to how balancing of these weapon types/ blocking should/ could be implemented in game?

what if while duel wielding the right trigger attacked with both weapons in a chain attack like you see in the video and the left still blocked, they didnt confirm the controls yet or how they will affect duel wielding yet.

Melkor's not just part-God, he's ALL God - the most powerful of all the Valar initially

Maybe they didn't make it or put in blocking yet. I didn't see any bandits blocking.

During the G4TV E3 interview Todd confirmed that the triggers were used for either hand.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic6dKnv3WdU

He talks about the triggers around 2:20



My bad, haven't read the books in a while.. for some reason I always label him a part-god don't know why..

i most certainly believe that the dual wield option will have a parry ability only because it would be quite stupid for a warrior of any class not being able to block i can understand it being a very weak block being only able to block some attacks like weak one not power strikes or arrows that's a shields job. i have seen the videos and at one point while dual wielding he strikes the one guy in the cave and then his sword is shown to be somewhat diagonal and then the enemy strikes his sword and he kills him with a finisher so that's my personal opinion. :deal:

Well just have to, as is the way with all things, wait and see... :foodndrink:

indeed ..

Well is there an logical reason forbid Dual-Wielding Parry?
Many dual wielding fencing techniques use such parry as one of base features, there was even specially designed weapons for parry in dual wielding like main-gauche, some Vikings dual wielding combat styles use two axes to parry and disarm enemy weapons, not adding such feature parry for dual wielding will even more strange then avoidance of spears.